This is How You Lose the Time War

‘A fireworks display from two very talented storytellers’ Madeline Miller, author of CirceCo-written by two award-winning writers, This Is How You Lose the Time War is an epic love story spanning time and space.Among the ashes of a dying world, an agent of the Commandant finds a letter. It reads: Burn before reading.
Thus begins an unlikely correspondence between two rival agents hellbent on securing the best possible future for their warring factions. Now, what began as a taunt, a battlefield boast, grows into something more. Something epic. Something romantic. Something that could change the past and the future.

Except the discovery of their bond would mean death for each of them. There’s still a war going on, after all. And someone has to win that war. That’s how war works. Right?

‘An intimate and lyrical tour of time, myth and history’ John Scalzi, bestselling author of Old Man’s War‘Lyrical and vivid and bittersweet’ Ann Leckie, Hugo Award-winning author of Ancillary Justice‘Rich and strange, a romantic tour through all of time and the multiverse’ Martha Wells, Hugo and Nebula Award-winning author of The Murderbot Diaries

Spectacular . . . Poetry, disguised as genre fiction. I read several sections out loud - this is prose that wants to be more than read. It wants to be heard and tasted

Kelly Sue DeConnick, creator of Captain Marvel

An intimate and lyrical tour of time, myth and history, with a captivating conversation between characters - and authors. Read it

John Scalzi, New York Times bestselling author of The Collapsing Empire

If Iain M. Banks and Gerard Manley Hopkins had ever been able to collaborate on a science fiction project, well, it wouldn't be half as much fun as this novella by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone. There is all the pleasure of a long series, and all the details of an much larger world, presented in miniature here

This book has it all: treachery and love, lyricism and gritty action, existential crisis and space-opera scope, not to mention time travelling superagents. Gladstone's and El-Mohtar's debut collaboration is a fireworks display from two very talented storytellers

Madeline Miller, internationally bestselling author of Circe and Song of Achilles

A time travel adventure that has as much humanity, grace, and love as it has temporal shenanigans, rewriting history, and temporal agents fighting to the death. Two days from now, you've already devoured it

Ryan North, New York Times Bestselling and Eisner Award winning author of How to Invent Everything: A Survival Guide for the Stranded Time Traveler

Exquisitely crafted . . . Part epistolary romance, part mind-blowing science fiction adventure, this dazzling story unfolds bit by bit . . . Full of fanciful ideas and poignant moments, weaving a tapestry stretching across the millennia and through multiple realities that's anchored with raw emotion and a genuine sense of wonder. This short novel warrants multiple readings to fully unlock its complexities

Publishers Weekly Starred Review

I'm very rarely a reader of romances - but I think now that's only because there is so rarely a romance like How To Lose the Time War. I've lost the day to it, and my only regret is that it's over . . . It's a smart, inventive, lyrical story that dances a pas de deux down the edge of a razor, and I'm very glad to have read it

Stephanie Saulter, author of Gemsigns

Intimately operates within an immersive space opera

Entertainment Weekly

The intergalactic and historic sweep . . . services rather than overwhelms what is in essence a story about falling in love under a repressive dictatorship

The Big Issue

Soars and succeeds in its vivid detail, and in its vast imaginative sweep . . . Vivid, savage, tender, cruel, it is worthy of many readings

Stephen Cox, author of Our Child of the Stars

An epistolary masterpiece, a masterclass in allusion, a deep dive into character, a perfect manipulation of form and syntax and tone, a bending of the genre to create something that is intrinsically science-fiction and yet absolutely, gorgeously unique . . . This book stunned me

Old Firehouse Books

A message that the world needs to hear

Cheryl's Mewsings

Fast-paced and intricately plotted

Temi Oh, author Do You Dream of Terra-Two?

Sweet, hopeful, and unashamedly beautiful

SciFiNow

Lush, glorious, passionate . . . I don't know how I'm going to move on past this book - but do I need to? I feel profoundly changed, cracked open and weeping, my heart in my hand, a songbird in my chest

For Every Helen of Troy

If you took that sappy story of unrequited love, Keanu Reeves and a time-traveling mailbox, strapped it up in body armor, covered it with razors, dipped it in poison and set it loose to murder and burn its way across worlds and centuries, what you'd end up with is This Is How You Lose The Time War, the experimental, collaborative, time-travelling love-and-genocide novel by Amal El-Mohtar and Max Gladstone

NPR

Compulsively readable . . . this book was one of my most anticipated reads this year since I found out about it, and it really did not disappoint one bit

Reads Rainbow

Strange and lovely . . . unique

I Should Read That

A story told through lyrical writing you very rarely see in fantasy these days . . . A genuine tour de force from a pair of writers at the top of their games

Streetlamp Halo

A wonderful tapestry of detail

Starburst

Well deserves every second you dedicate to it

Calles de Tinta

The worldbuilding is superb . . . This Is How You Lose the Time War wonderfully delivers on its premise

Den of Geek

Beautifully conceived and written in shifting tones with clockwork precision underpinning its Möbius convolutions, one of the most fascinating books of the year so far

Geek Chocolate

A short, but punchy book that was highly emotional. I loved it a lot. The whole idea behind it is brilliantly ironic. I loved the writing, and I wished it was longer

Umut Reviews

Breathtaking. Brilliant in a way I'm not sure a review can illustrate. It has to be read to be believed

To Other Worlds

A gorgeous love story playfully yet powerfully spanning time and space in a weave of imagery and delight

Claire North, author of The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August

This is the time-travelling queer epistolary romance I didn't know I needed . . . With precise, cut-glass prose - poetic and pragmatic at once - deeply compelling characters, and a tensely rewarding conclusion, This Is How You Lose the Time War is one of the most striking works of fiction I've read this decade. I'm going to be thinking about it - returning to it - for months, at least. Read it, because I can't recommend it highly enough

Locus

Exquisitely pitched . . . I don't remember the last time I cried rereading a book, but this one manages it